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We’ve now lived more than a week in Trump’s America, and I’m considering the limits of constant outrage.

One of the most dispiriting aspects of this election, for me, was how ineffective conventional journalism was at warning voters what they were buying with a vote for Trump. Say what you want about NPR, but the NYT and WashPost did spectacular work digging into the president-elect’s shady business practices, his failure to pay income taxes, his fake charity, his pussy-grabbing, all of it. If you didn’t know these things about the man before you pulled the lever for him, you simply weren’t paying attention.

If it made any difference, it didn’t make enough to keep him out of the White House. And so now we confront the most bizarre presidential transition in recent memory, and the stories are falling into our laps like ripe fruit. Top-secret clearances for the Trump kids, check. Press release on Ivanka’s bracelet, check. The man who won the White House and now doesn’t seem to want to actually live there, check. (I could look up links for all these, but I’m not. You can easily find them yourself. That’s sort of my point.) The new president has made it very clear: He will be running a kleptocracy, even feels he has a mandate to do so.

And with the exception of some demonstrations here and there, the country seems pretty fine with that.

So the question might be: Where do we go from here? Is this information so utterly irrelevant to millions of voters that journalists will simply stop gathering and presenting it? Or do we keep it up, at the very real risk that every bit of it can be used by the Trump camp as evidence of the terrible, terrible “bias” he labors under? And with the additional risk that with such a firehose of information in their faces day after day, most readers will simply go numb and tune out?

I’m not going to keep you in suspense. Of course we’re still going to do it. The job seeks an audience, but it doesn’t require one. But I worry about the numbness factor, and many other things, as well, including the whipsaw effect I feel almost every day. I think, OK, it’s going to be bad, but we can handle it, and then two hours later a surrogate floats the idea of registering Muslim immigrants, y’know, like they did with the Japanese in World War II, and my brain explodes.

I worry about pretty much everything these days. We haven’t had a literally shameless person in such high office before, not for years upon years. It’s terrifying.

But the right tone has to be struck. And it’s hard to sound an alarm with any nuance. It’s either ringing or it’s not. A few weeks ago I stood at a Detroit bus stop for 40 minutes or so, while a tired alarm at a long-closed business nearby wailed and wailed. “Do you take this bus every day?” I asked a woman. She nodded.

“How long has that alarm been ringing?”

“What alarm?”

So you see what we’re up against. How long before we become that alarm?

Something to think about.

A reader asked me, earlier this week, if I would make good on my pledge to offer some advice on how to tell the difference between real and fake news sites. As in so many things, it turns out that if you wait long enough, the internet solves the problem for you. Here’s a helpful Google doc, updated regularly, full of fake, distorted or clickbait-crap news from both the left and right. Earlier today, it had a list, but the list appears to be gone, but not permanently — it’s being updated, the author writes. In the meantime, it has some practical advice about common tells, including one that nearly tripped me up a while back, the “.com.co” suffix on URLs.

But here’s one from earlier this week. The site was called TheRightists.com. I’m not linking because hitting these sites, even to browse, feels risky to me; it always explodes a million pop-under windows and sets the laptop fans to whirring. But note the screenshot:

David Brooks, really? Assassination? So harsh. I read the story. There’s a paragraph from a recent Brooks column (I think. Anyway, it sounds like him.), followed by one where Brooks says, “dude.” I can more imagine my dead grandmother calling someone dude than Mr. Bobo Himself. This sent me to the About Us tab, which exploded more pop-unders and revealed this:

Oh, OK.

Note the ads. So many ads. The worse the ads, the less reliable the site. This is simply a given:

Meanwhile, for pure slow-burn irritation, you can’t beat these Silicon Valley d-bags, can you? These pieces, one from the Nieman Lab, one from MTV.com, illuminate our brave new world quite well.

It’s not enough that these people ruined my business. Then they ruined what replaced it, such as it was.

I think I better go to bed. Thanksgiving week ahead! We have so much to be thankful for, don’t we? Have a great weekend.

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164 responses to “Media string.”

Turning people against the press will be an important part of the Trump agenda. That means we need to support even the lamest kinds of journalism while agitating for improvements. Don’t fall into Trump’s trap here. Don’t do his work for him by helping to destroy the press.

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Jason T. said on November 17, 2016 at 10:34 pm

No comments? That’s odd.

The distressing thing, for me, is that so many people did know — or at least were told — the facts about our new president-elect. His multiple bankruptcies, his multiple mistresses and marriages, his history of stiffing his vendors and employees, were all on display.

Even if they didn’t watch the news, almost no American could have avoided the late-night TV jokes, for instance — it’s been a staple of everyone’s monologue for a year now.

And hell, if you watched only a few minutes of the debates, even with the sound off, our new president looked and sounded like a crazed lunatic.

So we’re left with one horrible conclusion: Conservative voters who had already decided to vote for Trump didn’t want to know about it. They willfully turned their heads.

And whether it was because they wanted to send a message to “That Man” in the White House, or because they hated that rhymes-with-witch Hillary, or they believed some vague promise that “we’re gonna to bring it back” meant the steel mill or the textile plant or whatever, it doesn’t matter.

They looked into the face of pure malevolence and said, “Well, at least he’s not Black/a woman.”

They own that. And if I ever had any doubt that a lot of my fellow Christians aren’t very Christ-like, this election — when evangelicals went overwhelmingly for a serial liar and suspected rapist — seals the deal.

The flip side is that, according to the exit polls, a lot of Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters were apathetic about Hillary Clinton, so they stayed home.

And I know a lot of that is because many of my fellow Democrats are special snowflakes who need to be inspired and feel little tingles shoot up their legs, or else, screw voting, they’ll stay home and play Xbox 360.

But a lot of it, also, is because Hillary Clinton was a horrible candidate, who carried more baggage than the average 757, and she ran a weak ground game. I know I had a hell of a time getting a Clinton-Kaine sign in western Pennsylvania, because she had no visible field offices. Even when I paid for them, it took almost two weeks to get them.

Trump-Pence signs were everywhere here.

There are stories coming out that Michigan Democrats had to raise their own money to hire people to go door-to-door, because the national campaign didn’t want to invest any money.

So, Hillary Clinton and her husband’s neo-liberal centrist Democratic Leadership Council cronies hosed us, and now they can go off to their well-funded sinecures, and say, “Oh, well, you can’t win them all, ha ha ha,” because very little of what President Trump does is going to harm them directly.

The next time I see a Clinton, or Ed Rendell, or James Carville, or Donna Brasile or any of the rest of those people on my TV, I’m going to throw a shoe at it.

What do I have to be thankful for? Well, more Pennsylvania liquor stores are now open on Sundays, and Grant’s Scotch is on sale this week. I hope my liver can withstand four years of President Trump.

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basset said on November 17, 2016 at 10:39 pm

An old friend who works in radio news in a large Texas city was telling me today about getting emails demanding that his station run something about the President outlawing the national anthem… and referring them to Snopes just got them going about Snopes’ liberal bias.

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Jason T. said on November 17, 2016 at 10:47 pm

An old friend who works in radio news in a large Texas city was telling me today about getting emails demanding that his station run something about the President outlawing the national anthem… and referring them to Snopes just got them going about Snopes’ liberal bias.

“Still, a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.”

A big part of this, I have to think, is that so many of us have been marinated for 30 years in talk radio and cable TV news that plays to, and reinforces, our biases.

Some of it, though, has to just be human nature. I want it to be true, therefore, it’s true. My magic man in the sky is better than your magic man in the sky, my sports team is better than yours, my favorite band is better than yours … and any evidence to the contrary just makes us dig in our heels even further.

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brian stouder said on November 17, 2016 at 10:55 pm

Not to sound like a cranky old guy (although that IS precisely what I’m becoming) – but the press has ALWAYS been full of shit. The penny press in NYC in the 19th century, or Jefferson’s Aurora rag, or the German language Illinois paper that the ambitious lawyer from Springfield very quietly backed – all of these show us that “the media” has always been a means to an end, for politicians.

Frankly – and again speaking as a cranky and mostly obsolete(!) old guy – I don’t even have a “smart phone”. My internet surfing is all on old-fashioned computers.

Still, if I see a news story on a main-stream news site that makes me say “WOW!”, I immediately search it on another news site.

I think the word I’d put onto a billboard, and one that I often remind our young adults about, as they show me this or that on their smart phones, is SKEPTICISM. (not cynicism, but skepticism)

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Suzanne said on November 17, 2016 at 11:05 pm

I’ve been told that Snopes is biased, too, by people who want to believe some internet nonsense.

And Jason T. that was a great rant! I am in complete agreement about fellow Christians. So much for all the Character Matters BS that the religious right has spewed over the years. When push came to shove, character didn’t matter one wit. Go ahead and vote for a womanizing pervert conman who surrounds himself with racists and lies like he breathes, but don’t tell me God wants you to do so.

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Jason T. said on November 17, 2016 at 11:13 pm

(curtsies politely toward Suzanne)

Even in supposedly progressive, upwardly mobile Pittsburgh, I am surrounded by Trump voters. I had a bad feeling weeks before the election. On a 15 mile drive down a state highway a week before the election, I counted dozens of Trump signs and two Clinton signs.

These are my (white) people. I now look at a lot of them and just shake my damn head. I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of “Planet of the Apes”: “You maniacs! You blew it up!”

My wife emailed me a map at the end of last week. “I would like to move to one of the blue neighborhoods,” she said. Me too.

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Carter Cleland said on November 17, 2016 at 11:15 pm

Hey Brian, can I nominate Jason T. for Thread Win for this line?

They looked into the face of pure malevolence and said, “Well, at least he’s not Black/a woman.”

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Sherri said on November 17, 2016 at 11:19 pm

When I had a discussion with a Trump voting couple at church, they just denied that Trump had run a racist, misogynistic, bigoted campaign. So, no conflict. I’ve been having an email discussion with my priest, and we’re going to sit down and talk, because I’m having a difficult time figuring out what the point of the church is in the face of things like that. And I’m in an Episcopal church.

I’m still recovering, so I haven’t watched network news or listened to NPR since the election, and I think I’m the better for it. I’ve carefully read a few articles, and have fired up Twitter a time or two, only to slam it closed after my outrage quotient is reached (about 45 seconds.)

I mean, just the smallest example: Trump takes credit for a Ford plant not being moved to Mexico because he was elected. Except that isn’t true. But it’s out there in the Breitbartsphere now, where no one cares.

The last graf of the WaPo story about Ford’s non-move to Mexico (see link in #11):

“Trump appeared to be relying on information gleaned from an article posted on a website of a shop that sells business cards and door hangers.”

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Deborah said on November 18, 2016 at 2:00 am

When the church attached itself to right wing politics it was doomed. Millenials have left it, and why wouldn’t they? The hypocrisy is staggering. What in the hell does open carry have to do with Jesus Christ?

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Dexter said on November 18, 2016 at 3:00 am

I’ll frequently Google for something and be slowed down at the site with what appears to be an interesting quiz or photo-shot, but which is actually a slick package of worthless ads. I finally stopped even trying to navigate that crap. Most newspaper sites indulge in this tactic. I’m not curious to the point I will click onto some sensationalist bold-type link just to be outraged.

My set-top cable box w/DRV wore out and I replaced it. I am with Spectrum and the replacement set-top box is the size of an old cigar box. It’s certainly not new technology, as one can never get new equipment , just scarred and beat-up recycled boxes. I hope this on lasts…the last one lasted just 9 months.
Sports fans got such a lift from Kate Upton’s Tweets about her man Justin Verlander getting beaten out of the Cy Young trophy. It was just hilarious. I love Kate Upton even more now, and baseball fans, generally speaking, do to, I just betcha. from TMZ Sports: ”

Enter Upton who went all scorched Earth on the process.
“Hey @MLB I thought I was the only person allowed to fuck @JustinVerlander ?! What 2 writers didn’t have him on their ballot?”

“He had the majority of 1st place votes and 2 writers didn’t have him on their ballots?!! can you pick more out of touch people to vote?@MLB”

“Sorry Rick but you didn’t get any 1st place votes? you didn’t win. #ByeFelicia @MLB keep up with the times and fire those writers.”

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alex said on November 18, 2016 at 4:21 am

Just awoke with night terrors again.

My partner and I decided to blow off his family’s Thanksgiving this year because we don’t want to deal with politics. So we’re having our own shindig and inviting like-minded people.

This at the tail of your About Us grab from TheRightist.com (“an Independent News platform”) hammers the nail in ever deeper:

“Do You Want To Be A WRITER or a JOURNALIST?”

Text on the back of matchbooks had more credibiity.

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Suzanne said on November 18, 2016 at 8:40 am

Anybody can be a journalist! Just like anybody can be a published book author! We don’t need no stinking editors? Have you encountered a self-published novelist? I know several. They are always sure the Barnes & Noble deal or movie deal is coming. Always.

I does appear that rather than draining the swamp, Trump is inviting more creatures in. But his peeps won’t care because he saved that Ford plant and, rumor has it, Apple is talking about moving their manufacturing operation to the US! Of course, if that happens, your iPhone will cost $10,000 but never mind that. Or maybe not. Gotta have jobs for all those Muslims & and other bad hombres when they are rounded up.

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Andrea said on November 18, 2016 at 8:51 am

Like so many of you, I am filled with grief, despair, and rage. My job is to advocate on behalf of marginalized children and youth — kids involved in, or at risk of involvement in the foster care system, the juvenile justice system, and the runaway/homeless youth system, such as those systems exist. It has already been an uphill battle to get the public to give two shits about these kids, and now that we have given the KKK and the homophobes permission to be open, I think it will be even more difficult.

But then I think, look, Cook County where I live is already a majority minority youth population, and before the end of the decade, that will be true for Illinois as a whole, with white children being less than 50% of the under 18 population. And while we may be closer to the front of the curve than to the middle of it, that will continue to be true across the nation. Did any of you see the electoral map of the 18-25 vote? Almost every damn state is blue, except for West Virginia, Kentucky, and a handful of empty states out west (North Dakota, etc.). Mississippi was blue. Oklahoma was blue. Alabama, Louisana, Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina: all blue.

And while I know it takes some years to get from the cradle to the ballot box, during those years, more baby boomers will die (at probably at a faster rate now that Paul Ryan is taking away their Medicare…) and more babies of color will be born. Trump can try all he wants to stop immigration by people of color, but even deporting 11 million people won’t change this trend.

Another trend he won’t change is the trend away from religion, and for the genuinely faithful here, my sincere apologies. I do not mean to offend or mock. I hold some deep beliefs myself, about the two commandments Jesus gave, and have dedicated my life’s work to try to live those. But organized religion as I see it in America today is so far from that — full of hypocrisy and hatred, and without compassion and genuine humility, so focused on the unborn, and not the born. But Trump will not lead young people back to church, and so that influence will diminish as well.

So we can’t give up, not just yet. We have to keep teaching children about American ideals and critical thinking, and we have to help them know and appreciate each other. I have to believe in our young people, even though we are bequeathing them a gigantic mess.

I forgot to add that I’m canceling my Chicago Tribune subscription that I’ve had since 1985, and subscribing to thte Washington Post instead. Already support the NYT, NPR, and the New Yorker. Am thinking to send the difference between the print and online subscription to the ACLU. I’m planning to make the change over Thanksgiving break, when I have 10 mins to myself.

One more, then I will stop. Think of it as letting the pus out. Maybe by having the KKK march openly, we will finally be able to cleanse the festering wound of racism in the country.

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Deborah said on November 18, 2016 at 9:31 am

This is something I’ve been thinking about regarding Ryan’s talk about privatizing Medicare: why would private health insurance companies want to take on a bunch of old people? I mean how do you make a profit on that? If they don’t want to take on pre-existing conditions because they have to pay out so much, isn’t it kind of the same thing? Can someone explain this to me?

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Peter said on November 18, 2016 at 9:38 am

Wow, and to think that this site is my happy place!

I still can’t figure out what the hell happened in Michigan, much less Pennsylvania. Wisconsin, I could understand – my son lives there and that state has really turned into a political nightmare.

My problem is that I’ve been reading all the articles about Hillary blowing it in those states, that all she did was run ads showing how awful Trump is. Well, if you ask me, that’s all I thought she had to do – I would think any reasonable person would have voted for Bobo the trained chimp at the zoo before they would vote for Trump. Boy I was wrong.

I could rant for who knows how long, but I wouldn’t have said anything that wasn’t said already.

The only thing I’ll add is if I had spent the time reading and worrying about Trump and used it on marketing and continuing education, I’d be the smartest and richest architect around.

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Suzanne said on November 18, 2016 at 10:06 am

I do not know how Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan could work unless there is a mandate for all to purchase. You are correct, Deborah,that insurance companies will not want to insure the type of people who use Medicare. Insurance has to have a large, diverse risk pool. Bad drivers in with good. Homeowners that live in tornado alley and those who don’t. This is why you can’t drive your car legally without auto insurance or get a mortgage without homeowner’s insurance. So unless Ryan’s plan includes a mandate JUST LIKE OBAMACARE the healthier elders won’t sign on and the prices will go through the roof for everyone else. Granted, retirees are more likely than a 20 yr old to sign up, but how many will wait until they are declining. This is why Obamacare had the sign up or else mandate. This is why there used to be a big “just say no” on buying insurance with a pre-existing condition. Insurance relies on a large risk pool which is, in essence, you, the healthy person or the careful driver, paying for the sick & careless. But you do so because you are either mandated to or you are willing to do so just in case you need the payout.
So, in a nutshell, I think Ryan’s plan is garbage. And as a tail end Boomer, I fully expect to die uninsured and poor.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 18, 2016 at 10:11 am

Andrea, have you read “A Kind and Just Parent”? You probably have, but I run into the darndest people who haven’t. It’s not on Kindle, but you can find copies for 1 cent and shipping on Amazon; I’m sure Bill Ayers won’t mind!

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Pam said on November 18, 2016 at 10:20 am

Jason T – wonderful post! Especially, your comments on why the hell did the Dems run Hillary in the first place. Although I fully supported her candidacy because, well, what was the alternative, I was deeply afraid that she couldn’t pull it off. Once the scarlet L (loser) goes on your forehead, it’s over for you. Here was a person who couldn’t beat a relatively inexperienced and unknown candidate (Obama) in the 2004 primaries who was AA to boot. Although I will say that I thought she might have made it, if it weren’t for Comey. That AH should be fired forever.

The Dems in Ohio were equally inwardly focused by selecting Strickland to run against Portman. He was crushed. I suspect that in both cases, the power structure had a lot to do with their choices and nothing to do with their ability to win.

Like jc, I’ve been on a News Diet. He’s not my president and I’m drawing too many exact parallels with the rise of Hitler in the early 1930s. But I’m just taking a holiday. Like John Oliver says we have to FIGHT HIM! This idea that we have to give him a chance — BS! We already know what he will do and he’s already doing it. And I have the feeling that the Democrats have given up. We need new leadership there and in a hurry.

Oh and BTW, I don’t believe in polls at all. I think most people who are polled are shining them on. I know I would if someone called during dinner.

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Jill said on November 18, 2016 at 10:35 am

I bought an online subscription to WAPO this week as a thank you for putting out some good stuff this election. This has been a crazy time for sure. I live in Oregon and am relieved we are part of the west coast Hillary fan club. This summer I worked for 8 weeks driving fleet cars around for Enterprise. We worked in teams of 4-8, lots of time in vans before reaching our destinations. I was a definite minority among my mostly retired coworkers. They hated HRC with a passion that I found/find completely dismaying. It has to be the result of too many hours spent watching FOX news and keeping a Facebook feed that is one-sided. I’ve often thought I should initiate a challenge amongst my Facebook friends of differing politics. It would go like this, I’ll throw out one feed I like that’s completely biased toward one view (I’d probably suggest Sean King’s page) and if you follow it and read it, I’ll follow and read one of yours. After two weeks or a month we could get together and talk about our experience. But who wants to spend two weeks reading someone’s feed that loves Trump? 🙁

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Sue said on November 18, 2016 at 11:03 am

Welcome to Wisconsin, America. If past practice in WI holds true for the entire country, citizens will in the next several years continue to elect Republicans who will poison your water, sell your public land to political donors, tire-lock your female population’s uteruses, throw education out the window, and actively consolidate their power in the voting booth and supreme court. Your papers will not howl with outrage – and neither will you – when, for example, it turns out your leader, in a previous public job, set up a completely illegal shadow email system whose primary purpose was to bypass information normally available to reporters and the public and whose secondary purpose was to coordinate between taxpayer-supported employees and political operatives.
We’re in the sixth year of this hellscape and the last election a week and a half ago saw the active rejection of most candidates fighting for clean water and air and protections for vulnerable citizens. The reddest counties have the most Obamacare users and we want to cut them off at the knees. Kansas may get all the credit for horrifying codependence between citizens and abusive legislators, but Wisconsin is right up there as well, a foaming petrie dish for the new America.
Support independent journalism organizations. Please.

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Deborah said on November 18, 2016 at 11:09 am

Speaking of fake news, or satire, I always think of the time I read something shocking on FaceBook about Dick Cheney, I think it was. Anyway, I commented my shock on nn.c and was politely told by Jolene (if memory serves), that it was a blurb by Andy Borrowitz from the New Yorker and it was pure satire. Boy did I feel stupid, and I’d been reading the New Yorker for ages but didn’t recognize Borrowitz’s name when I saw it on FB. I love Borrowitz, he’s had some zingers lately since the election.

Can you all believe Jeffery Beauregard Sessions as Attorney General? Seriously? It probably means they’re going to replace him in the Senate for someone even worse. He is currently a senator, am I right about that?

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nancy said on November 18, 2016 at 11:13 am

Sue, everything you said about Wisconsin can be said about Michigan, too. This past election saw no change in party control — I think one seat in the state House changed — and the newly elected Republicans are more conservative than their predecessors. If you want things to change in a way other than the usual War on Taxes talking points, it’s not going to happen.

Alex, sounds like you made the right Thanksgiving decision for your peace of mind.

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brian stouder said on November 18, 2016 at 11:46 am

Well, tonight is GameNight, which is an event wherein several fellows and I convene twice a month, and break out board-games and the like.

Back in the old days (say – 20 years ago or so), we might do a railroad game (1830 is a classic!) which involve playing hexagonal pieces to build your lines, plus stock market manipulation, hedging one’s bets, seizing control of another fellow’s RR, and trying to defend your own…but those sorts of games tended to go ’til 2 in the morning…and anymore, I’m toast by around 11-ish.

“Euro-games” is a term that encompasses less complex games that generally play to conclusion in an hour or two. One representative favorite is Manilla Bay – wherein players bid to be harbor-master, and/or invest in punts with various commodities (as determined by the harbor master), and/or invest in piracy (which may or may not succeed) and/or various possible outcomes for the punts in the harbor….a very quick-playing game that relies on a bidding mechanism which almost always highly-values being the Harbor Master…so that NOT being Harbor Master represents a good savings of dollars over the folks who win that bid…except that two key benefits of being Harbor Master is that only he (or she) can buy a share of stock (or not), and HM also decides what commodities to load on the (3) punts.

By way of saying – within 10 minutes of the start of whatever game, current events are out the window, and it’s all about whether one should pursue another share of stock on the spices, or maybe hedge by hiring the pirates (etc)

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alice said on November 18, 2016 at 11:59 am

Thanks to Nancy and all the Nalls for the sanity these weeks. I’ve managed to get a discussion going on Facebook (additional thanks for the bravery!) & I thought I’d pass it along. Ask about job creation ideas, as in we need home care givers but how to make it affordable for the person in need/and provide a living wage for the caregiver. If they use the “once the immigrants are out” argument, ask how the difference in cost will be covered. Puts the burden on them & just might make them think, if only for a second.
PS. “Draining the swamp” & that human sack of shit Newt floats to the top.

Suzanne and Deborah, I think the “flaws” you are pointing out in Ryan’s Medicare plan are the feature, not the bug. With subsidies for private insurance, healthier and wealthier seniors will be able to afford private health insurance. Poorer and sicker seniors won’t. So… back to the ER for them, and shorter life spans result from untreated/delayed treatment. Again, I believe this is an intended consequence, not an unintended one.

The question for me is: will the AARP advocate for all seniors or just those who can afford an AARP membership (i.e. healthier, wealthier)?

The insurance companies won’t balk because they will either (a) not have sicker people sign up or (b) will be able to charge them (the sicker people) outrageous rates. Win win for them.

Jeff, I have not read that book yet — but it has been recommended to me before. Just a limited amount of time in my life, but thanks for putting it back on the rec list. I find that I will have more time for reading as I limit my social media consumption following this election.

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Jakash said on November 18, 2016 at 1:43 pm

Jason @ 7 says: “I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of ‘Planet of the Apes’: ‘You maniacs! You blew it up!'” Yep! That’s been my recurring reference since the election, too.

Forgive me, nnc-ers, but I just can’t let Pilot Joe’s classic bit of self-congratulatory trolling @ 115 on the previous post slither off without my own riposte. He’s proud of his daughters (I’ve got no problem with that, of course) because they voted for Hillary but are “not bitching about how the results turned out.” Gotta note that we here griping about the election are just regular folks attempting to wrap our heads around this disastrous result. Chatting around the metaphorical water cooler. And it’s only been 10 days, even now.

The supposed tough-guy, straight-shooting tycoon that Joe’s so delighted to have as freaking President of the United States finally, grudgingly admitted that Obama was born in the U. S., thus accepting the legitimacy of HIS election and re-election, on Sept. 16. Of this year. So, evidently we’ve all got until 2024 before it would actually be time to quit griping about this result, based on that disgusting precedent, and nobody here has even questioned whether or not the guy won. Just how, and what it means for America.

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Heather said on November 18, 2016 at 2:05 pm

I had someone today (a gay man) tell me to stop stewing about the election. I said I wasn’t stewing, just terrified and focused on action. He actually laughed when I mentioned the word “resistance.” Resistance doesn’t just mean joining the Maquis or hiding the Death Star plans in a droid. It’s a thing we can do every single day.

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brian stouder said on November 18, 2016 at 2:20 pm

Once the final vote totals are known, I may have to get a ballcap with the saying “Make America Rigged Again” – followed by the margin of Secretary Clinton’s popular vote victory over Donald (currently approximately 1,267,265)

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Peter said on November 18, 2016 at 2:31 pm

Brian, that’s just another item that puts me in orbit – I looked up Bush/Gore ‘2000 to verify, and Gore won the popular vote by a little over 500,000, and lost the electoral college by 3 votes. Hillary has got 1,267,000 more votes, and it’s not even close in the Electoral College! Now that is some serious effd up crap.

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basset said on November 18, 2016 at 2:34 pm

It’s gonna be like the Sixties. Resistance. The Movement. The hate. The blaming. The division. At least this time around we’ll have legal pot, for now in a few places anyway.

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susan said on November 18, 2016 at 2:43 pm

Brian @43 – Next week, as soon as I get the magnetic and the vinyl “papers,” I will be printing up bumper stickers that say: “TRUMP – Making America meshuganna”

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Deborah said on November 18, 2016 at 2:55 pm

As often happens I conked out early last night and didn’t see the end of the previous nn.c thread until Jakash mentioned it above. Lo and behold, Coozeldad showed up! And come on Joe you complained about Obama a lot. This election was shocking to many if not most, it had unexpected results and will have unexpected consequences. The uncertainty of Trump, as I keep saying is staggering. Honestly, no one has any idea what’s going to happen in the next few years. While Republicans may be tickled now, we’ll see how it all shakes out.

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Jolene said on November 18, 2016 at 3:19 pm

One way it is going to shake out, for sure, is that a lot of truly loathesome people are going to have power over the rest of us. Jeff Sessions, Mike Flynn, Steve Bannon, Pompeo. I just heard the extremely annoying Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, perpetual antagonist of Barack Obama, preaching the sweet joy of post-election unification. Honestly, several times a day, I am nauseated as I think of what is happening.

Jeff Sessions was too racist to be confirmed as a federal judge in 1986, rejected by the Republicans controlled Judiciary committee. Will he be too racist for any Republicans today if comes before the Senate as the AG nominee?

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LAMary said on November 18, 2016 at 3:27 pm

I know three people, two are relatives, who spent the last twenty years of their working lives employed by the federal government. They all retired fairly young, at least younger than I am now, with pretty nice pensions. All three of them voted for Trump. All three complain about taxes and government spending. One of them, three days after the election, posted on Facebook that his 401k is very happy with the election results. Thank goodness someone a lot more articulate than I tore into to him.

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Peter said on November 18, 2016 at 3:33 pm

Sherri, are you kidding? He’s a shoe-in.

I do think the Trumpers are trolling – they trot out Rudy Giuliani and Ted Cruz and then come back with Jeff Sessions, who was probably their choice all along. Bad as he is (and he is bad, for the record), he’s just sunshine and smiles compared to Rudy and Ted.

And don’t get me started on Marsha Blackburn. I think she’s done post graduate studies at the Phyllis Schlafly Institute.

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Sherri said on November 18, 2016 at 3:33 pm

Flynn, for instance, has said that Shariah, or Islamic law, is spreading in the United States (it is not). His dubious assertions are so common that when he ran the Defense Intelligence Agency, subordinates came up with a name for the phenomenon: They called them “Flynn facts.”

The ACLU is the top of our list for getting money immediately, as is Planned Parenthood.

So glad to see Coozledad back here. Cooz, if you’re reading, we’ve missed you.

I just called Sen Jeff FLakes office and asked his staffer to ask him to object to Sen Sessions for AG. I said that even though I am a Democrat, I have been impressed with Sen Flake’s willingness to stand up for what’s right and that I hope he continues to do so.

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Deborah said on November 18, 2016 at 3:50 pm

I’ve been spending time the last few days getting info about some of the people that Trump is listening to and the more I learn the creepier it gets. Like Thiel was/is a devotee of Rene Girard, here’s a quick Wikipedia link about who he was and what he taught https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Girard, but there’s lots more about him on the Internet. Basically Bannon and Thiel don’t see the KKKers as folks who unfortunately tagged along with their vision, they see them as necessary to rile up the masses and ultimately knock out the scapegoats (the immigrants, etc) because that will calm the masses down for a while and not take away the wealth and power from those in control. They need the white supremacists to make their theories work. And when Bannon says racial conflict will all wash out, what he really means is it will all “white out”. Really, The stuff I’m reading doesn’t come from fake news sites either.

and for the record – the Republican Party owns whatever happens – for better and for worse – lock, stock, and barrel.

They own the Legislative and the Executive branches of government, and they’ll soon enough own the top of the Judicial branch, too.

They’ve run out of institutional scapegoats; they ARE the institution!

One wonders if they’ll succumb to the temptation to grab power away from states (or at least, blue states!), and dump the vestiges of ‘Federalism’ into the waste can.

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Dorothy said on November 18, 2016 at 4:20 pm

There aren’t enough hours in the day to read most of the comments here fully, not to mention the links you all so brilliantly share. This has been a very wild and busy week at my office. I just wanted to chime in for a second or two and say I’m glad to see Cooz is back (even if it’s just an occasional comment), and thank you for the community here. If it weren’t for this site I really, really think I would have gone crazy since the election. I’m trying so hard to be positive, but I know the substance of that jerk whose name I will NEVER link with the word President, and I know we are all facing an untold number of days with anger taking over much of our mood. If I don’t get to say anything else for the next week, I am thankful for this group. Have a good and hopeful holiday next week, friends.

LA Mary, I worked for nearly 30 years for government contractors. In one of the last jobs I worked in a large office building containing thousands of government and contractor employees located on a federal installation. I saw a car parked in a handicapped space in the huge parking lot with a bumper sticker that said, “The best government is the smallest government.” I also knew fellow contractors, some of whom got quite wealthy, who constantly complained about paying taxes. These people are immune to irony.

About Ryan’s plan to kill Medicare, I already commented that I went from paying more than $500 a month for a $3000-deductible health insurance policy to paying the Medicare fee. There are two aspects of a government voucher program that are, shall we say, out of touch with reality. One, no insurance company will insure old people for anything less than $500 a month, and no government voucher program will pay anything near $500 a month. I think people on Social Security will be unable to afford health insurance. Not just a lot of people, but something approaching everyone on SS. The only people who wouldn’t be hurt are the only ones who favor this, and they are all not just well-to-do, but very wealthy. It’s obviously class warfare at its worst. Ryan and his gang of thugs are actually proposing programs that will kill people.

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Sherri said on November 18, 2016 at 5:26 pm

Since the election, my husband no I have both been wearing the “Love trumps hate” buttons I got during the campaign. They have been great conversation starters. The checkout clerk at the grocery store this afternoon and I had a good conversation about Jeff Sessions. My husband says it’s generated a lot of conversations for him at work, and he’s been able to convert some of those conversations into ACLU donations.

At some point later I’ll write about my conversation with my priest (who was not a Trump voter, and I never thought he was). I’m still processing.

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James said on November 18, 2016 at 5:36 pm

Here’s what’s been driving me crazy, at least, recently.

I feel compelled to comment on FaceBook when I see someone posting an obviously fake story. I’ll ask them to cite their source, asking them to use an established, real news gathereruig organization, like the NYTimes, or the like. Not a blog.

Their response is frequently: “Ha! Like I believe the NYTimes!” Then they say: “Google it,” trying to make me somehow research/prove/disprove their false story.

If I point them to a Snopes article refuting the story, I’ve actually had them say “Snopes has been disproven as a reliable fact checking organization.” When I ask where they heard that, they point to a right-wing site.

This circular, non-reasoning logic is making my head explode, which is probably their intent.

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Judybusy said on November 18, 2016 at 5:43 pm

For those interested in some very good reporting on populist movements here and in Europe, I highly recommend the current issue of Foreign Affairs. That magazine always has a theme with about 6 or 7 in-depth articles about that topic. This issue began with an interview with Marine Le Pen, who inherited France’s National Front party from her father. She could actually be president next year. Of course, she loves Trump. The next article is by Zareed Fakaria on the history of populism in the US and current trends here and in Europe. I left the issue at work–I read it over my lunch break–so I can’t say who else is in this issue, but it’s just such a great way to learn a lot about foreign policy. It is a commitment though. I’d say each issue takes me 6-7 hours to get through. The end of each issue has about 20 book recommendations with reviews. One that caught my eye in the last issue was a history of the Holy Roman Empire, until I saw it was 1000 pages long. I’ll do 700, but I think 1000 is probably a bit too detailed to hold my attention!

I refuse to despair. Why? One: I got a free copy of a book on how to organzie against the phenomena in The New Jim Crow. The author shares first thing how 4 prisoners–really bad guys–organized in prison against their solitary confinement. One was a white supremecist, one was black and I think the other two were Hispanic. They ended up igniting actions all over the country. Two: In Minnesota we defeated an amendment to restrict marriage between a man and a woman by having conversations. Hundreds did phone banking and changed thousands of opinions. Three: I work with people who have broken the law. Some are sex offenders. I fight hard for them. If I can do that with them, I can do anything. If I can see their human worth, I can see the human worth of people who voted for Trump. It will take hard, long work by many people, but sitting around isn’t gonna change anything. So Pilot Joe, many of us aren’t just whining. We’re organizing to make things better for you, for your daughters, for ALL of us.

Alex, I want to make sure you know I heard you. I am glad you’re going to be with friends this Thanksgiving. We are too, by happenstance. My family is pretty good about not talking politics, but conversation and food at Friendsgiving is way better! I hope the day is good to you.

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Suzanne said on November 18, 2016 at 6:00 pm

James, I hear you. I listened to a reporter today who covered the Trump campaign and said the same thing. When hevwould explain that some news story was not true or partially true, he said he was routinely told he was biased.
I had a Facebook “friend” (really just a strange former co-worker) comment on something about Ted Cruz appearing at a conference with a pastor who advocates killing gay people. He said it was not true. I found 3 articles that proved it was true, but he said he’d never heard of the first 2 and the third, The NY Times, is liberal & thus, unreliable.

Why on earth aren’t the Democrats on the air with ads against ZEGS’s Medicare destruction plan? Every minute they delay is another minute for the villager millionaires to start jizzing their pants over Dreamy McBlueEyes.

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alex said on November 18, 2016 at 6:13 pm

Thanks JudyB and Adrianne upthread. Most years we can handle it, but this year we’ve decided to make our absence felt. At Christmas last year we had to listen to a couple of chuckleheads prattling on about our rights that had been taken away by Obama and when I asked just what rights had been taken away, they couldn’t name any but insisted that the First and Second Amendments were on the chopping block and would be gutted soon enough.

Even in victory these folks are sore losers, and I suspect that enough people will miss us that they will lay down the law for future gatherings. At least I hope so.

As for Joe’s comment in the last thread, I’m sure his daughters aren’t “bitching” about the election because they know better than any of us that it’s pointless to try to reason with him.

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Deborah said on November 18, 2016 at 6:27 pm

That’s what I thought too, Alex.

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Deborah said on November 18, 2016 at 6:34 pm

My rightwing sister says not to worry about Ryan’s Medicare privatization plans because they’re not going to effect us because we’re already on Medicare. In other words, she got hers so fuck everyone else, even her own kids eventually. And if she and all the rest of the old rightwingers already on Medicare think they’re safe, guess again.

Deborah, my mother says pretty much the same thing. I try to tell her that I, in my late 50s, am screwed and expect to die uninsured, and her response is usually that she doesn’t know anything about that. And then prattles on about how much my dad’s meds cost because he’s in the donut hole. Never mind that I won’t be able to have insurance at all by the time I’m their age. Lovely to have my own mother vote against my interests…

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Suzanne said on November 18, 2016 at 9:56 pm

Apparently Gov My Pants attended a performance of Hamilton tonight in New York. And was booed.

He’ll probably like the part where the sitting Vice President get to duel a guy.

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Joe K said on November 18, 2016 at 10:19 pm

Might be, then again it might be because they can respect someone else’s opinion, with out calling him all sorts of vulgar names, scream shout, and look down there noses at him. Unlike the majority here.
And no you haven’t hurt my feelings and I’m not going away.
Pilot Joe

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brian stouder said on November 18, 2016 at 11:04 pm

Joe – I’m glad you’re not going away.

As a guy I know of once said, passion may have strained – it must not break our bonds of affection.

“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

The Donald to the contrary notwithstanding, and to paraphrase Monty Python – we’ve had worse!

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Jolene said on November 18, 2016 at 11:53 pm

Do you really think we’ve had worse, Brian? We’ve had worse times, certainly. Can’t beat the Civil War for the worst of times. In the modern era, we had Nixon. Of course, it’s possible Trump will turn out not to be terrible, but, even if you disregard his disgraceful personal behavior (and that is darn hard to do), he seems wholly unqualified. He seems to have no idea of the unique role of the U.S. in the world; he is ignorant of the history and significance of international agreements. He is clueless about the specifics of pretty much any area of policy. Much of what he says is flatly untrue, including last night’s statement that he had saved jobs in Kentucky.

Joe, you can’t vote for a racist demagogue and claim the moral high ground.

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Jakash said on November 19, 2016 at 1:47 am

I’m not enough of a history buff to rate Buchanan, A. Johnson or Harding, to name a few, but, as much as I like Brian, I’d certainly challenge anybody who claimed that we’ve had worse in the nuclear era. Nixon was a liberal, a constitutional scholar and a managerial wiz compared with ole Rumpy, IMHO — though, needless to say, he was none of those things. Carter had his flaws, but was certainly a man of principle. I was far from a fan of W., but at least he seemed like a nice guy, poor choice that I believe he was. I’m not sure which worries me most with the new guy — the thin skin, the lack of curiosity coupled with pomposity, the cluelessness when it comes to American governance, or the nature of the toadies that he’ll be calling on to run the country.

The fake news site thing has been enabled by the regular media companies, I suspect. Here’s a link to the front of my own “mothership,” which in fact is now a daughter of the voracious Gannett/USA Today Ubership:

Look at that page, click any link that’s news-related, and scroll up and down. Consider the “guidelines” to discerning a fake news site, and I ask myself, how distinctive does my “paper” look online versus the others? The news hole shrinks and the placement and obtrusiveness of the ads get ever more dominant. Meanwhile, I’m told we’re making ever less money (or profit margins, down from the older 60 & 50% to a measly 40 or 30%) and staffing gets slashed again, with content coming more and more from farther and farther away. My editor is now physically resident 150 miles away.

The whole confirmation bias thing has long been a frustration in Bible study for me as a pastor. I think this curated compendium of writings from across 4,000 years of human experience with seeking to encounter the divine and unscrew the inscrutable still has much to say to us in 2016, and maybe even in 2017. But again and again right in front of me, even in studies I lead and teach and try to unpack carefully and respectfully myself, I watch folks open up their Bibles to look for what they want to find, find it, and close the holy book with a satisfied thud. The idea that there may be overarching narratives and compelling revelations of something other than what you went there looking for is a hard, hard sell — and some folks are deeply resistant to being taught, they’re just there to have their assumptions confirmed, and get anxious and angry when you point out what the next verse says after the half-verse they’ve cited as a discussion ender for all their adult lives, or you step back and ask what that verse says in community with the apparent contradiction of the next book a few pages on.

But then I happen to be sitting at home yesterday waiting for the plumber to show up, and had the terrifying third hour (or is it fourth?) of the Today Show on, and listen to Kathie Lee Gifford do a skilled and incisive exegesis of the Greek word behind the English oft-translated as “submissive.” She was dead-on, and it gave me hope.

Whether online propaganda or coffee-table self-congratulations, Paul saw it coming, that some will always be “having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

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Deborah said on November 19, 2016 at 8:18 am

You through me off when you said Paul, I thought you meant Ryan until I realized you meant the Apostle.

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Deborah said on November 19, 2016 at 8:19 am

Threw

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Suzanne said on November 19, 2016 at 8:41 am

Excellent Jeff. This has been an issue for me with my church friends for so long. Most won’t look for writings or viewpoints that don’t confirm what they already know. We had a women’s Bible study (now defunct) and I introduced a book by a woman we know who is a Messianic Jew. Most of the women could not wrap their heads around that. Is she Jewish or Christian? She could not be both. One woman suggested we should not read the book because how could the author have the “right” doctrines? Simple. They want life & religion to be simple and it won’t ever be.

Sadly, this mentality has taken over most of our politics, too. You must be all in with your party’s “doctrinal” stance or you are supporting the other side.

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Joe K said on November 19, 2016 at 8:42 am

My apologies Sherrie
I didn’t know you wrote the rules.
Pilot Joe

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James said on November 19, 2016 at 8:51 am

Joe:

Instead of attacking a Sherri with a straw man argument (she did not say she made the rules here – you did) how about replying to her comment.

Can you vote for a racist demagogue and maintain the high ground? If you have no answer, then don’t attack the messenger.

James,
I don’t think he is a racist demigouge, you here and the media do, I respect your right to believe what you want. I also respected the office of the President the last 8 years even though I didn’t agree with all his policys.
The only people I have heard from the left that say to respect and give the new administration a chance is Obama.
Pilot Joe

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Deborah said on November 19, 2016 at 10:34 am

ROGirl, thanks for that link, I’ve sent it on to a few friends.

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alex said on November 19, 2016 at 11:30 am

Joe, if you think we’re all such snooty fucks and that the media’s full of shit, why bother with us? Your guy won. Why can’t you be happy with that?

If you thought Trump had the power to make us respect him or his office, you got duped bigly.

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Deborah said on November 19, 2016 at 11:47 am

Honestly, I wonder if Trump himself is being duped. He ran for office for a kick to satisfy his ego, he doesn’t have a philosophy or a vision. what scares me are the people who have insinuated themselves to him by flattery and sycophancy, Bannon, Thiel, Sessions, Flynn, and Pence. Those guys are scary and smart (misguided but smart), they know how to manipulate Trump. Well, maybe not Pence, he doesn’t seem smart, he was obviously chosen to get evangelicals on board. Remember that there were rumors that Trump was trying to ditch Pence at the last minute. I keep saying this, I don’t think anyone has any idea what Trump will ultimately do during his presidency.

Joe, I think Trump has 1950s messed-up ideas about women that should have been retired in the 1980s.
I think he and his father refused to rent to blacks until they couldn’t get away with it.
I think he’s the worst kind of businessman—one who doesn’t pay his subs if he can get away with it.
I think therefore his concern about the working person in America is paper-thin and will be one of the first things to evaporate in his administration.

In fact the “if we can get away with it” level of capitalism is pretty much Trump to a T.
And having his approach pervade our government is going to leave a stain that it’ll take a lot more than 8 years for us to correct.

And by the way, that “give his administration a chance” stuff is bring amplified and echoed by Breitbart and Newsmax.

I respect the presidency of the United States. The president-elect doesn’t (constitutionally) get any special respect, be he Trump, Obama, Bush, or Bill Clinton.

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Joe K said on November 19, 2016 at 12:14 pm

Alex,
I’ll be glad to put on a safety pin and you can come over and I’ll give you a hug if it will make you feel better, and Jc I think a lot of the accusations against trumps business practice is over blown by the media, he said on the not paying the subs, they didn’t do the work he was promised so he didn’t pay them, wouldn’t you do the same?
Pilot Joe

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Heather said on November 19, 2016 at 12:19 pm

Really Joe, you’re going to get mad about vulgar language NOW? Where have you been for the last 18 months? Your guy spews it.

No, I would not do the same. They did the work. He raised the bar after the fact…basically said “oh now, what I wanted was this.” The absolute worst kind of boss to work under (as people going to work in the White House will find out in a month or two.)

The media is not doing this. They’ve reported on these incidents between Trump’s companies and subcontractors.

Trump’s actions are plenty bad enough just reported as facts, which they are…you can’t “overblow” a fact.

I think I better make a contribution to ProPublica in your name, Joe, so that more people are paid to do the tough work of reporting these incidents, these facts, these atrocities. You can choose to dismiss them or be a smart consumer/citizen and drill down—not by relying on Fox/Breitbart/Newsmax but on original-source reporting, the kind that says “here’s the full text of that lawsuit.” “Here’s what Trump’s lawyers asserted.” “Here’s what was later proven false in a court of law.”

Facts matter. They’ll matter in 2017 like never before.

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Deborah said on November 19, 2016 at 12:26 pm

Joe, it’s pretty suspicious when you have a pattern of hiring people to work for you and then stiff them. Sure, it can happen once in a while that someone won’t perform and you hold out some of their pay. But over and over again? It becomes a way of doing business. I told a story here a few weeks ago of how that happened to the company I worked for when we did some design work for a developer. He had a habit of paying about 75% of his contracts and then suing his contractors on some bogus claim. He eventually was investigated for it. But you don’t have to believe it, “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”.

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Deborah said on November 19, 2016 at 12:33 pm

I know, I know, I know, first rule of the Internet “don’t feed the trolls”.

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Suzanne said on November 19, 2016 at 12:36 pm

Joe, I know someone who has worked in commercial real estate in the NYC area for over 30 years. He said no one in New York will do business with Trump because it’s too much of a risk. That’s not media spin, that is someone in Trump’s business.
And I really do think Trump is like the car chasing dog that doesn’t know what to do now that he’s caught the car.

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Jakash said on November 19, 2016 at 12:37 pm

Yeah, this “respect the office” stuff is gonna be an issue for me. Not yet, though, ’cause he’s not in office. I’ve called him a lot of names, but, c’mon, I’ve had decades to observe and read about the guy and he’s transparently a grifter and a no-class caricature of a rich guy. The photos comparing his dwellings to Saddam Hussein’s palaces come to mind. (And critics referring to his sons as Uday and Qusay, though certainly mean, seem pretty apropos.) I’ve been willing to hope against hope that he’s not really the character that he’s honed to perfection for this campaign. But his past doesn’t give one much optimism when it comes to thinking that. And his present — the kind of folks he surrounds himself with and that he seems to be considering for important roles in the administration, indicate that he’s not any different that we’ve come to expect.

When he rode down that escalator last year to announce his candidacy, it was like some kind of joke and any serious person knew he was completely unqualified to be President, in so many ways. Or so it seemed to me. Nothing about his campaign ever changed that, except that, what the Hell!, people kept voting for him. Now, enough voted for him (and enough Dems voted for Johnson or Stein or didn’t vote at all) that he’s actually won. This certainly makes him a master charlatan and world-class carnival barker, but it hasn’t changed anything about his qualifications to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. IMHO, needless to say. I’m not sure where I’ll end up, but trying to ignore him is about the best I can manage at the moment. (And, though I’ve read as little as possible about him over the past week, obviously this and my other comments here demonstrate that I’m not doing a very good job of following through on that. Sad!)

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 1:02 pm

Joe, I’m just looking at the man’s own words and actions. It’s not media spin that he refused to rent to blacks in the 70s and was sued by the DOJ, and sued again when he violated the consent decree. I watched video of his testimony before Congress against casinos on Native American land when he said “some of them don’t even look like Indians.” I heard him say the Central Park Five should still be executed even though they had been exonerated by DNA evidence. I watched the interview where he told Jake Tapper multiple times that Judge Curial couldn’t be fair to him because of his Mexican heritage.

He hired Steve Bannon, who has run an openly racist web site, as his campaign CEO, and named him a senior advisor of his administration. He’s indicated that Jeff Sessions, a man who was rejected by the Senate as a federal judge because of his racism, will be his nominee for Attorney General.

He spent five years questioning whether President Obama was born in the US, and brags about it.

So, Joe, explain to me what a racist is, if he doesn’t qualify.

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 1:19 pm

Good thing the media spent so much time worrying about pay yo play and conflicts of interest with the Clinton Foundation. Otherwise, Trump might not have had such a business opportunity as the White House represents!

Let’s not forget that our incoming President just settled a series of fraud lawsuits yesterday for $25 million, so at least he won’t have to testify before Judge Curiel now.

But, Goldman Sachs speeches!

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Judybusy said on November 19, 2016 at 2:01 pm

To add to what Sherri said, we have video ofTrump mocking a reporter with disabilities. And the tape of his talking about assaulting women clearly shows his disdain for more than half the human race. He is a sex offender based on behavior he himself has described. (I have a client charged with 5th degree criminal sexual conduct for touching a woman’s breasts while she slept. So, I think grabbing women’s crotches would certainly be chargeable.)

So, Joe, it’s not media spin. It is the behavior and words of the man himself.

Not necessarily, Sherri. Anyone in the class can reject the settlement and still take him to court. Maybe some lefty billionaire who has a few million gathering dust could do a Theil on Trump for this and any of his other misdeeds.

An interesting question.. Il Deuce settled his Trump U class action suit for $25 million. How much does that work out per plaintiff? Did Trump compensate the people he victimized adequately or did he settle pennies on the dollar?

Today is the first day in Chicago where I needed to wear gloves and earmuffs this season. In about a half hour the Holiday Parade starts on Michigan Ave. I can see one small sliver of it from the comfort of my place, inside where it’s warm and cozy. I do like to watch when the lights come on though, it’s pretty spectacular. I only went out briefly to get some groceries, lots of people on the streets.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 19, 2016 at 5:27 pm

A progressive friend of mine in town is bothered by what he sees as an extreme lack of reflection by conservatives to try and understand why liberals, especially liberal women, are so concerned and resistant to Trump’s ascendancy; in particular, he notes that there’s plenty of discussion, even if little agreement, on the left about trying to understand why conservatives and traditionalists are happy about supporting Trump. He sees this, of course, as a serious imbalance, and asks why.

Jonathan Haidt has written on this subject, and one possibility is that the world-view of conservatives tends to automatically be less empathetic. I’m not as willing as my friend to presume all conservatives (myself included) are innately empathy-impaired, but he’s got a point that there’s not much investigation in right-wing circles, from #NeverTrump National Review to Breitbart (naturlich), into how conservatives can better understand liberal reactions to Trumpism.

I honestly don’t know how the GOP finds it way out of the box canyon they’ve ridden into. I think it’s going to end up being a fracturing and reconsolidation on some basis, but my prescience is non-existent so it may lurch forward as an animate corpse further than I’m thinking it will. But the Democrats had better be wary of chasing the stragglers so far down the defile that they find themselves stuck in their own sort of out-of-touch dead-ends. But right now, what would a centrist option even look like?

[insert pic of dead armadillo with painted yellow stripe across it HERE]

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LAMary said on November 19, 2016 at 6:14 pm

Joe, before I moved to California I worked for a company that sold specialty and imported food to hotels, restaurants and stores. Trump stiffed us on the bill. We sold to all the big hotels in NYC and Atlantic City even though we were a small company with about eight employees. Trump’s company didn’t pay us and told us to take them to court if we wanted our money. I know we were not the only people Trump didn’t pay. This isn’t the media saying this.

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 7:18 pm

Deborah, the people in that Kentucky county voted overwhelmingly for Romney and McCain over Obama. I can only find Kentucky results online back to the 1976 race, but each time, Clay county went solidly Republican. According to Wikipedia, Clay county hasn’t voted for a Democrat for President since the Civil War.

That’s not about NAFTA or the belief in a war on coal or anything else people want to blame Clinton’s loss on. That’s just pure cussedness.

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Jolene said on November 19, 2016 at 7:45 pm

To follow up, several of the contractors he’s screwed have reported that he’s used that “I’ll see you in court” strategy to get out of paying what he owes, knowing that, after paying lawyers, the contractors wouldn’t recover enough to make the suit worthwhile even if they won.

Last June, USA Today published a multi-part analysis of Trump’s involvement in civil litigation, both as plaintiff and as defendant. The section on dealing with contractors shows that he stiffed everyone from the waitstaff for events held at Mar-a-Lago to the people who built his casinos in Atlantic City. I can’t imagine that anyone could read this article and think of him as an honorable businessman. And this is just one part of the report on more than 3,500 lawsuits, a substantial number of them involving failure to pay various taxes–further evidence of his preference to have other people pay the freight while he takes home the cargo.

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 7:45 pm

Aides to Session said that he was not insensitive to African Americans and pointed out that as a young Republican at Huntingdon College in 1966, Sessions campaigned against segregationist candidates such as Lurleen Wallace, who was running for governor to sustain the policies of her husband, then-governor George Wallace, a staunch opponent of desegregation. George Wallace was banned by state law from serving consecutive terms.

Lurleen Wallace’s opponent in that race, unnamed in this quote (and in the WaPo article) was James Martin, who had become a Republican because of Kennedy’s stance on civil rights. In other words, Martin was every bit the segregationist that Wallace was.

Ivanka sat in on his meeting with the Japanese PM. Jared Kushner is heavily involved in the transition. The Trump hotel in DC is actively soliciting business from foreign diplomats. Not only is there not any semblance of a blind trust, there’s not even any effort to present even the illusion of any separation between the Trump presidency and the Trump businesses.

For any other president, these would be impeachable offenses. They violate the Emoluments Clause of the constitution, and Gingrich accused Clinton of violating this clause when she was SoS because the Clinton Foundation took money from foreign governments.

Do any of you think the Republicans in Congress will do anything about any of this, unless Trump stops,being useful to them. If he vetoes something they want, then I suppose they might go after him so they can install a more compliant My Pants, but otherwise, I suspect they’ll allow him to monetize the presidency as much as he wants and forget they ever said anything about selling the Lincoln Bedroom

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 8:25 pm

Jeff(tmmo), I have no energy left for diagnosing conservatives. If they want to join in the fight against a looming autocracy, then great, we need all the help we can get. If they think that Trump will be just fine and our system of checks and balances will control him, then I hope that works out for them. Conservative lawmakers have spent much of the last 20 years deliberately destroying the effectiveness of the institutions now expected to prevent disaster, so I’m less optimistic than they are.

It can happen here.

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 8:38 pm

If only there had been some means to get stories like this out before the election!

Sherri, I’m so glad you are blogging here! Thank you for all the links and insights.This shit is just so overwhelming.

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 9:10 pm

I’m working on getting my own site active again, so I don’t hog Nancy’s blog.

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susan said on November 19, 2016 at 9:16 pm

I bet most people here don’t mind. Maybe not even Nancy.

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redoubt said on November 19, 2016 at 9:41 pm

He spent five years questioning whether President Obama was born in the US, and brags about it.

Sorry about this, but I have to speak up finally, because it’s personal now. I’m also an African-American, and born in the US. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather served in the US military. I work for the federal government. Now comes a person–the new head of the government–who has doubts that his predecessor is actually American. He’s not just questioning President Obama, but me and my ancestors. Given the struggle with the Jefferson Beauregard Sessionses of this country to be considered fully American, I hope you see my point.

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 9:47 pm

No need to be sorry, redoubt. I’m glad to hear from you.

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Deborah said on November 19, 2016 at 9:59 pm

redoubt, welcome, please tell us more. Would love to hear more of what you have to say. We need you.

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Sherri said on November 19, 2016 at 10:03 pm

Keep in mind when you read about Trump meeting with his Indian business partners, that India and Pakistan have longstanding disputes, and both have nukes. If Pakistan gets the sense that India is going to be favored in a new administration, what’s that going to mean for the situation between India and Pakistan? Does Trump even know this?

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Jean Shaw said on November 19, 2016 at 11:02 pm

Redoubt, I keep mumbling things like “1857 called and wants its politicians back,” so my thoughts are with you and yours.

Sherri, a blog would be fantastic. Bring it on.

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basset said on November 20, 2016 at 9:42 am

Diversity… we are at Cracker Barrel. Ahmed is our waiter.

and I still can’t beat the golf tee game.

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Deborah said on November 20, 2016 at 10:56 am

My husband is out of town this weekend for a get together with his cousin and his last two uncles, one of the uncles has Alzheimer’s but is still in pretty good shape. They’re taking a train ride today up from the small town they all grew up in to some place between there and Chicago. I had ice cream out of the carton for breakfast this morning.

My sister did the DNA test and sent me the results. Our ancestory is 50% British, 16% Scandinavian, 14% Eastern European, 4% Jewish (that is cool to find out!), 8% Irish (I thought it would have been more than that), 4% European West, 3% Finnish, 1% Iberian Peninsula. I’ve asked her what service she used to get this info but haven’t heard back yet.

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beb said on November 20, 2016 at 11:32 am

Pity that there’s no provision for recalling the President of the United States.

It’s a sad state of affairs when Mitt Romney is see as the stable, rational one. People seem to be pushing for him to become Secretary of State as an anodyne to all the crazies Il Douche has already nominated.

The conservative mind seems both authoritarian and lacking in empathy, which I’ve long felt that Jeff(TMMO) isn’t really a conservative, because he’s neither of those.

In all this discussion about fake news sites is whether they are confusing people about what is real or are they merely confirming what people already believe?

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susan said on November 20, 2016 at 12:09 pm

Beb, I believe Drumphth could be indicted, on any number of crimes he has, and is, committed/committing. That would be the civilian version of impeachment, no? Of course, if that were to happen, nothing would be resolved before Jan. 20. Because of our “deliberative” system.

Also, too, MyPants.

Of course, that would leave the Zombie-eyed Granny Starver.

Oh shit. What a f**king mess. Inauguration day will be nasty.

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Jakash said on November 20, 2016 at 1:01 pm

Pro tip: When picking targets for boycotts, start with theater productions that nobody can get tickets for, anyway! Tickets on Stubhub for Hamilton in N. Y. for next Wed. start at $525 for middling seats. In Chicago, it’s a bargain — a number of seats for around $300. Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing economically distressed Rump supporters would shell out for, but it does involve guns, so there’s that. I happen to be “boycotting” these prices, myself.

Which brings us to the back-up tip: Pick things to boycott that you have no interest in, to begin with! I may be off base here, but this boycott of Hamilton seems like it might be about as effective as if I were to rally a bunch of Chicago opera subscribers to boycott NASCAR. Nobody would be able to tell the difference between the boycott and the ongoing lack of interest!

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Sherri said on November 20, 2016 at 1:54 pm

It’s not a protest, it’s in group signaling. As with the “protest” of Starbucks by some Trumpers ordering reprints and having the barista put Trump as the name. Just think of it as the social media equivalent of gang signs.

I’ve been contemplating making a button that says, “I didn’t vote for him” after the inauguration, just in case someone might mistake me for a Trump voter because I’m an old white woman. I realize I’d probably be asking for some harassment. I don’t care. Whenever I’m walking around in public now I think how embarrassing it would be if someone thought I actually voted for the dumb ass.

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Deborah said on November 20, 2016 at 2:21 pm

Sherri, interesting, what does a post-democratic US look like? Is there anything out there describing that? I realize we’re probably already in the early stages of it, but what is in store for us in the not too distant future?

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Deborah said on November 20, 2016 at 2:25 pm

What I mean by that is, what takes it’s place? An oligarchy? Totalitarianism?

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Jakash said on November 20, 2016 at 2:40 pm

Deborah,

One of the many benefits of you living in 2 different liberal cities is that you don’t need to worry about THAT (#146), at least. IMHO. I saw this cover from “The Stranger” from 2004, the aftermath of Bush’s reelection making the rounds on Twitter after this election. And Bush got 51% of the vote, Rumpy seems like he’ll end up at 47%. Anyway, one of the few bright spots for me has been realizing that Chicago is not Rump country and, as f-ed up as the politics are around here, at least we didn’t help elect him. The point about the cities vs. the small towns and the countryside is disturbing, but any port in a storm…

A meme evidently going around the Rumposphere is that he won 84% of the counties and Hillary only won 16%. Which I suppose is true. Eric Zorn points out, however, that “Land doesn’t vote, making this not a ‘deplorable’ potshot but an irrelevant one. HRC got more people votes.”

Jakash”…this boycott of Hamilton seems like it might be about as effective as if I were to rally a bunch of Chicago opera subscribers to boycott NASCAR.” Thanks for a laugh at least amidst all this! LOL!

I know a man who was born in Eastern Europe and came to the USA at a young age after the war. He’s very upset about the election. This right wing lunatic fringe is happening all over the world. France may elect Marie LePen, Hungary already has the only leader in the EU to support Trump, there is Boris Johnson and the Brexit vote, and now Trump. In some ways, it’s my area on a world scale. In my rural/small town area, a large majority of the bright, gifted young people get an education and get the heck out to a bigger city. This acquaintance of mine said in his home country, the bright, gifted young people do the same thing except the really bright and gifted don’t just go to the city, but get the heck out of the country.
So, what’s left? Well, it’s not the best and brightest and they now stew and fret because their own are, by their actions sending the message that the old ways, the old town, and probably the old family ties, aren’t good enough for them.

There seems to be a worldwide inability to try to adapt to modern realities. Can’t we all just get along? It seems not.

I think an American autocracy will look a whole lot like a home owner’s association. A few people, allegedly elected, pushing everyone else around in the name of the rules and resale value. My friend Zbigniew grew up in Poland under the communists. He moved to Canada when he was 23, and worked in the US as a resident alien where I met him. He lived in an HOA and wasn’t allowed to plant tomatoes. He was livid. He told me so many times “Even the communists would let us grow tomatoes”.

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Dexter said on November 20, 2016 at 4:04 pm

susan 131…”This shit is so overwhelming”. True dat.
I used to get all worked up over Nixon then Reagan then Bush43, and all I got was a need for lifelong high blood pressure meds.
Years ago Natalie Maines told the world, from a London stage, how ashamed she was to have Bush as President, and was told to “shut up and sing”, we now have Pence being addressed by “Hamilton” actors for his stance on diversity. I agree with both bold actions, though neither changed or will change a goddam thing. Pence was on Face the Nation today and he just danced around the question of upcoming waterboarding by the US military…he’s obviously onboard with Trump in advocating the return of waterboarding and other torture.
Point? This upcoming administration will absolutely fracture any “unity”.
The USA survived Reagan somehow, survived Bush43, and may survive Trump. Better days are ahead, and I guess we can be thankful for that.

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Deborah said on November 20, 2016 at 4:46 pm

David C, that’s hilarious. I can relate, we had a developer in Abiquiu who bought some land in our area and tried to control what you could and couldn’t do on your land. There was an earlier covenant that stated that if you had 100 acres or more you could do whatever you wanted. We had 100 acres, plus the guy ended up in a huge sexual scandal and lost his land to his ex-wife and she sold it all off in small parcels. Talk about schadenfreude. There is often a tyrant in an HOA.

Little Bird was thrilled to tell her Jewish friend Judith, that she too is a smidge Jewish.

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Deborah said on November 20, 2016 at 7:26 pm

David C, another possible analogy is the difference between a Condo building and a Coop building. We’re in a Coop building now and previously we were in a Condo building and the difference is night and day. In the Condo building we didn’t have the feeling of ownership that we do now. When I use the laundry room here, it’s always ship shape, the people who use it take care of it much better than where we were before. I don’t really understand the legal ramifications of it but I think in a condo building you just own your own condo and a condo association makes the rules etc. But in a Coop building you own a percentage of the building. Everyone seems so much more invested in the good of the whole instead of just their own unit. Or something? I don’t really know.

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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 20, 2016 at 7:55 pm

Deborah, Jakash, et alia:

– Counties that are home to state capitals voted 54%-39% for Clinton. The rest of the country voted 50%-44% for Trump.
– Clinton lost white male non-college graduates by 49 percentage points. Obama lost that group by just 31 percentage points; is this an indication of sexism trumping racism? I’d need more data to say that with certainty, but it’s one interpretation of that difference. Clinton did worse than Obama with Millennials, African Americans, & Hispanics. She did better with white female college grads.
– Clinton got 34% of the rural vote, the lowest of any major candidate since Walter Mondale in 1984.
– 46% of Trump voters said there were unsure if he would be a good president, but thought he was superior to the alternatives.
– Trump lost on “Cares about me” 35-58%; “Experience” 8-90%; “Judgment” 26-65%; but he won 83-14% on “will bring about needed change.” I know, it’s arguable, but that’s the exit polling data from Hart Research.
– Trump won voters who viewed both candidates unfavorably by a 49-29% margin.
– Trump won voters who viewed neither candidate as qualified by 69-15%.
And I’m guessing those “dislike/mistrust BOTH” voters are late deciders. I think there’s data to support that, but I’m starting to see cross-eyed, it’s been a long day.

David Wasserman of Cook Political Report noted this: Since 1992, Democrats have won the majority of counties with a Whole Foods. Republicans have won the counties with a Cracker Barrel. Moreover, the difference has grown in every election: from 19 points in 1992, to 23 points in 1996, to 31 and then 39 points in Bush’s two wins, to 43 points in 2008 and 46 points in 2012, when Obama won 75% of counties with a Whole Foods and just 29% of those with a Cracker Barrel (note a few counties have each). This year, Trump won 76% of counties with a Cracker Barrel, just 22% with a Whole Foods: a difference of 54 points. Further sign of increasing polarization and ideological segregation.